


Kharr of the House of K’Lar

by CelestiaTrollworth



Series: Aftermath [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star. Trek
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 15:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19748551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestiaTrollworth/pseuds/CelestiaTrollworth
Summary: When you need to tell your boss you knocked up her daughter and neither of you is sorry...





	Kharr of the House of K’Lar

It is difficult for a Klingon, even a Loyalist, to convey how deeply we feel our obligations to our officers. Even so, mine are extraordinary. I have been a captain for ten years now, and the reason for what used to be my clan’s seemingly inexplicable Romulan alliance has now become obvious.

When I was a young star-warrior, our sector was repeatedly attacked by Romulans without honor, and a Romulo-Vulcan admiral with honor offered us vengeance. That alone would be worth my life and career. Our underhanded but fully justified alliance preserved Imperial boundaries and saved innumerable Klingon lives; even the Council recognizes that. My admiral would have had good reason to execute all of us. Instead, she set aside the past and chose to trust me. Her wing commander dealt with me as he would a son of his own house-clan. In time, there was nothing withheld from me.

Now I am about to break her heart.

Ruven has come here to stand with me. He is the admiral’s blood-child, her surrogate son. Vulcan as can be, he is my chosen brother. “Do you want me to go in with you?”

“Better I speak to her alone. Not that you wouldn’t be an excellent chaDich.” Strictly speaking, I would only need him in that capacity during a trial, and if this goes badly there won’t be one.

How to explain what she lost to the former Chancellor of the Klingon Empire as he colluded with the Romulans? The insults against her brother and husband—we understand, we do, would have understood even had she been allowed to dispose of Q’o’nos. The Organians forbid, or it would be a puff of dust like her home planet. We have long said “no one hates like a Vulcan,” and while they may deny it, the truth is we have admired their cold and often silent contemplation and their swift strikes. One of those raids landed on the world where the Tal Shiar Directorate of Adaptation had been carrying out breeding experiments in a prison. In the succeeding fight, nearly every building inside the wire and every Directorate scientist was destroyed.

I was a prisoner there, beaten only moderately and set aside for use. I am also one of the results of earlier experimentation in the Klingon Empire itself. It would have been easy for my mother to dispose of her strange Augment child with too much Romulan blood, no brow ridges and a mud-colored mix of copper and iron in his veins. She did not. My father could have despised what was done to his DNA. He gave me his own name. The admiral could have ignored me when she found me broken in the raid wreckage. Instead, she lifted a beam off my living remains. Her husband and Captain Rai extracted me and turned me over to the care of their very young, very efficient ship’s doctor.

Most of our doctors are blunt and brusque. This smallish, graceful Romulan added a rare combination of fire and kindness. Most of her staff was much older than she; I later found she had finished her training less than a month before. She dealt with the crisis of a thousand gruesomely wounded by pressing an assortment of off-duty personnel into service and barking orders so they jumped to follow. What Klingon man wouldn’t find that intoxicating? She commenced my emergency repairs with barely a word, then complimented my courage. Through my recovery she furnished excellent surgical service and even better conversation, demonstrating a deep knowledge of my culture and an understanding of why my family and allies were the first to be thrown to the Romulan wolves. I did not realize Saeihr was the admiral’s daughter, and therefore endowed with Vulcan mental abilities common to healers. By the end of my convalescence, without a mention to her, I had sworn off all other females.

I have kept my word. It has not been easy; these ten years have been full of long separations and missions to try the valor of anyone. For the first few seasons, I do not believe she was fully aware of how serious I was. Like most telepathic healers, she keeps herself shielded, both in self-protection and so as not to intrude on another’s thoughts. One day, perhaps four years past, I stopped by at the end of her shift for the customary micronutrient supplements we need in flight, and we talked for hours as nearly every chance meeting between us went. Her control wasn’t its usual because of a long stretch of exhausting duty. For the first time, I felt the unfettered brush of her mind against mine. She looked up in mid-conversation to say “Hm, so you do love me?”

Do I. Will I. Matters progressed in fine fashion afterward. After the Battle of New Vulcan, when the whole long game could be revealed, we celebrated the admiral’s birthday together in the new version of ShiKahr. It was a very Romulan affair with all that entails. I forgot to go back to my assigned quarters, forgot several other matters that should have been important but were not, and so this moment has come.

The admiral’s husband, now openly my wing commander, comes out of her office and grasps my shoulder in that rough Romulan way. His steel eyes tell me he knows. “If I can forgive,” he says, and does not have to finish. He can, he has, or I would not have been hauled out of the ruins ten years ago.

There is nothing for it but to step into that office, where my admiral stands with her back to me. The rest of my life depends on her turning around. She does, and quirks an eyebrow for a second. “Just so.”

“You know why, don’t you?”

“Ha.” She sits. “This time next year, correct?”

“She thinks so. I am no expert on that.”

“She is. She hasn’t told me yet in words, only in conveniently forgetting her shields.”

“So it was that she...in any case.” My throat seems locked; it will not do. I must stand tall, or must I? No, the thing to do is kneel and lift my head, baring my throat. “As you wish, rekkhai.”

She flicks one forefinger’s nail, barely scratching the skin. “Get up. I’m angry, but not at you.”

There’s a shock and a half, and it’s good she waves me at a chair as she turns her back again. “I do not understand.”

Hands braced on the windowsill, she bows her head, then turns back to me. “Angry at myself. Even if I still followed Surak, I should be. The cause would not only be sufficient, but also mandatory. Kharr, you are the bravest man and captain I could ask for. You have managed to maintain your Klingon honor when half of your Empire denied you and half of...mine?...wished to use you.” The hesitation is real. She knows I heard that, too. “Sixty years, Kharr, thirty on that side. Am I even Vulcan any more? If it means shunning my Romulo-Vulcan daughter forevermore for marrying outside, to hell with that. Looking inward got my planet blown up. Does she love you?”

Yes, the chair is a very good idea. “She has said it. I have said it to her.” I know, for even if I lack strong psi she definitely does not; her love, her passion, screams across our bond. “Yes. Yes, she does.

“Has she thrown anything at you?”

Now there is a very pleasant thought. “Many things. I find her cultural knowledge stimulating.”

“What does your clan think?”

“I informed but did not ask permission. Their approval is unnecessary to me.”

“Good. If any of the S’chn T’gai start anything...they know better, do they not? If I look at your face and see only a Klingon, I do not deserve to draw breath. If I cannot see the difference between a criminal, of any shape, and an honorable being, of any shape, then what am I?” She slaps her comm harder than need be. “Saeihr’kam, if you’re not busy, would you come over to the office?” She crosses to the door and peeks around. “Ru, we might need you after all, don’t you think?” My cha’Dich all but runs in. Does my wing commander speak, think at her, or does it matter? “Of course, elev. She’s on her way.”

Saeihr’s quarters at the Admiralty are only two doors down. Most of the crises have abated enough for her to leave the office earlier and lie down in the afternoon, which is good when she is unwell. In a moment, she is also beside me and her mother is shoving a chair in her direction. Her father stands behind her at parade rest and just for a second Saeihr leans her head back against his heart. The way he looks down at her tells me I may, just may, live through this after all.

“So, little daughter of mine, you have brought us a son,” the admiral says. “How formal do you plan to make this?”

For the first time, I see my decisive and commanding mate can be uncertain. She didn’t think this far. Both of us rather assumed we would be in flight for our lives. “Of course we are bonded as best we could, and of course we wish to be together always. That has been our understanding. Beyond that, we hadn’t thought, things have been so...and we hadn’t had a chance to discuss...”

Her mother fishes a water bottle from her desk and twists the top. “Much, I’m willing to bet, once you got your patients taken care of and had a bed at hand. He’s quite good-looking and you’re my daughter.” Saeihr guffaws as politely as you can imagine. Her mother hands the water to her. “There’s no need to let anyone offer to challenge, is there? It’s not as if he’s going into...well. There are advantages to not being all that Vulcan. A little Romulan, mostly Klingon, a decent honorable captain and male, do you share my opinion?” Saeihr nods and grabs my forearm with proper Klingon-worthy force. “Then be old-fashioned here, take a slug of that and hand him the rest. We have enough witnesses, don’t we?”

No water ever tasted better, I tell you. With my throat not so parched, I can speak. “About the, er, accident...”

“Kharr, she’s a doctor and Vulcan enough not to get this way without meaning to. Junior is about as accidental as my own spawn here.” Nothing shows, but the admiral has been most pleased with her midlife hope-child in the works. “Welcome, little warrior,” she says to the vicinity of Saeihr’s gut. “Boy, right?”

“I was surprised at that,” Saeihr admits. “With the population pressure, I’ve had nearly all girls coming through my practice. It’s running ninety-one percent to nine.”

“It wouldn’t matter to us, but it might to Big Kharr when there are so few men left in their clan.” She taps her comm a bit more gently, summoning several codes and murmuring quietly to aides. In a moment, my parents are on her screen, turned so we can all see. “They finally came out and told us.”

“Did they!” Father looks as fiercely pleased as a traditional Klingon can and Mother is smiling so broadly I can see her second canines. It’s clear we woke them up. It’s also clear they couldn’t care less about that. “I see you didn’t kill him.”

“Better not. The grandson will need a father, eh?”

“Grandson!” Mother claps her hands. I was not expecting that. Granted the border where we live has always been prime hybrid territory, and our clan one of the most accepting, it’s still enough relief that Saeihr is propping me up in the chair. “This is exactly who we all need.”

“Just so! Do you know how much we hoped for grandchildren? The first to continue our lines.” The admiral turns to Saeihr. “Duty may have called, but it can shut up for a while. Big Kharr, Maj, is there any ceremony on your side we need to make this what they want?”

Mother shakes her head. “Too great a range of belief in the Empire to be picky. Our people were never wealthy enough to do the full recreation of the Wedding of Kahless. It won’t even be necessary to have anyone make a half-hearted try to break them up with an axe, though I hear Ruven is rather handy with a bat’leth.”

“Then ours may do. When there is no pressing need, a simple gift of water serves the purpose. Lhairre, did you see her share her drink with him?”

My wing commander growls his agreement. If I did not know the heart in that body, I would be even more afraid. “He is our son.”

“Ru, did you see it?”

“Yes, khaf-ko’mekh, he is my brother.”

“Then sign your papers wherever you like and call it good. Big Kharr, if your clan wants to have a ceremony, I might not be welcome, but children, my blessing is yours and I want to give it where they can see.” She lays a hand on each of our heads and says the old words from her tradition as her mind nudges ours into alignment. It doesn’t take much. We did our best at our first encounter. Her own shadow echoes, the link to her remaining family singing the news. “Be well,” she says, and her yellow eyes are damp. “Be...happy.”

I’m still alive, married and have a son. What else could I be?


End file.
